Random fics for friendsongoing
by IShouldBeOverThis
Summary: Wrote these for specific people-warnings etc. on each.
1. Sherlock and His Toys

**Title:** Sherlock and His Toys  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Mycroft & John  
><strong>Pairing: <strong>Possible Sherlock/John (if you want)  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 221  
><strong>Rating: <strong>G  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Descriptions of stuffed animal abuse  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>None  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Mycroft warns John

***  
>Mycroft gazed at John superciliously. Did Mycroft have another way of looking or was it just a product of his eyebrows like how terriers always look angry because of the way their brows and beards are cut.<p>

"John…"

Sometimes John didn't like the way the Holmes brothers said his name; they said it too much as if they found it strange and needed to linger over it, which was rich coming from two men named Mycroft and Sherlock for heaven's sake.

"Yes."

"Did you know that Sherlock had a teddy bear when he was small?"

"No, strangely that's never come up in our conversations."

"Hmm, no I imagine it wouldn't. At any rate, he had a teddy bear.

"Its name was John."

"Really?" Somehow John didn't like the direction that this conversation was taking. "Strange coincidence, that."

"Indeed. Its name was John and it was cream coloured. He carried it everywhere, dragging it behind him by an ear, or a leg. Letting it bump over the ground, getting it dirty." Mycroft wrinkled his nose, as if such behavior was decadent and perverse and not normal for a small child.

"Do you know what happened to that bear, John?"

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"It fell apart, fur gone, button-eye dangling. Sherlock quite literally loved it to bits."


	2. How Not to Care for Books

**Title: **How Not to Care for Books  
>Characters: Sherlock &amp; John<br>**Pairing: **Sherlock/John (non-explicit)  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 221  
><strong>Rating: <strong>PG  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Suggestion of foreplay and descriptions of the abuse of books  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> None  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Sherlock and John treat books differently

***  
>John likes to keep his things nice. Take his books, for instance. He tries to treat them well. His grandfather had very old medical texts and Bibles in Greek and Latin and he taught John to value and care for books. John didn't even like to highlight his school books, doing so reluctantly and with carefully ruled fluorescent lines.<p>

Sherlock is as careless with his books as he is with everything else that he owns, except perhaps his violin, greatcoat and skull (the one on the mantel, not the one at the top of his spinal column). Despite owning some very rare and exotic books on poisons and ancient methods of murder, he will callously fling them aside onto the floor or towers of other books, leaves flapping feebly. Every abuse that can be heaped on a book will be done from dog-earing and spine snapping to annotations ranging from 'WRONG' scrawled across an entire page, to tightly packed notes in red ink in the margins. He has even been known to tear out whole pages.

The only time that John and Sherlock agree on how to treat a book is when Sherlock appears in the doorway of John's room and says, "John…" in that lush, low voice. When that happens, John can't throw the book fast enough from the bed.


	3. The Difference Between Love and Like

**Title: **The Difference Between Love and Like  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Sherlock & John  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> Sherlock/John  
><strong>Word Count: <strong>221  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Post-Coital  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> None  
><strong>Summary: <strong>John and Sherlock express the way they feel about each other

***  
>"I love you sometimes, you know," Sherlock said, nuzzling John's hair, curled around him naked and sweaty.<p>

"Only sometimes?"

"Sometimes you're annoying."

"I love you all the time."

"Really?"

"But sometimes I don't like you at all."

"Ah…is there such a difference between love and like?"

"There can be. I love my sister, but I don't like what she does, how she treats people. So I don't always want to be around her."

Sherlock's hand, which had been tracing lazy figure eights along John's thigh, stopped moving. "Do you sometimes not want to be around me?"

"Sometimes, and then I take a walk, go drinking. But you go off in a huff too. Hide at Bart's, wander London, creep back."

"I resent the implication that I either hide or creep."

John made a snorting noise. Sherlock sniffed but the fingers resumed their tracery, moving over John's thigh, now moving further so that they were closer to the inside of John's thigh.

"John…"

"Yes."

"Will you always come back?"

"I can't see why not."

"That's not really a promise."

"No. Will you always come back?"

There was silence but John knew that Sherlock hadn't fallen asleep.

"Sherlock?"

"As long as I'm able."

"That's not much of a promise either."

"No. But it's enough for now."

"Yes. As vows go, it's not bad."


	4. The Smoker Outside the Hospital Door AU

AU and power dynamics.

**Title:** The Smoker Outside the Hospital Door  
><strong>Characters:<strong> Sherlock & John  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> None, possible pre-slash  
><strong>Word Count:<strong> 221  
><strong>Rating:<strong> G  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Smoking  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>None  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Sherlock introduces himself to John in a different way.  
><strong>Author's Notes:<strong> Title stolen from "The Editors"

John choked on the smoke surrounding the slim figure outside the hospital door. Mr. TallDark&Weird the nurses had dubbed him. He would be there for a few days and then disappear for several weeks only to reemerge again in the same place like an apparition.

A few of the nurses had tried it on but been rebuffed, and not gently. Both sexes. Security would be sent for, only to find him gone. He seemed to have a sixth sense about when to leave.

John waved his hand in front of his face and coughed pointedly. The young man, because he was young, John could see it up close, simply blew more smoke into the air above John's head, a heavy, bitter smelling tobacco.

"I wondered when you would finally become curious, Doctor Watson."

"I'm not curious."

"Of course you are."

The voice was cultured and deep with an underlying sneer though the angular face remained impassive.

"No, I'm here to ask you to leave. You're disturbing the staff."

"Boring. Am I disturbing you?" He stepped up to John, looming over him, too close. John stepped back and the man chuckled.

He stubbed his cigarette out on the hospital wall and dropped it into the receptacle.

"We'll meet again, Doctor Watson. Don't worry," and he was off, leaving John struggling to breathe.


	5. Leave the Lights On

**Title:** Leave the Lights On  
><strong>Characters: <strong>Sherlock  
><strong>Pairing:<strong> Possible Sherlock!UST  
><strong>Word Count<strong>: 221  
><strong>Rating:<strong> G  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>None  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> Post TGG  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Sherlock is afraid of the dark, and silence and being alone now.

***  
>Ever since the pool Sherlock keeps the lights on. Every light in every room. The curtains are drawn but he keeps a little space at the edge where he can look down into the street. Mrs. Hudson tuts, and when Mycroft visits, he looks about pointedly but says nothing about bills and practicality and pointlessness.<p>

He sleeps even less than usual now, occasionally passing out on the sofa arm thrown over his eyes. He keeps the radio on too, quiz shows, comedies, dramas, the shipping news; blank voices talking about nothing. He should probably be listening more rather than trying to block it out but he can't be alone with the silence. Besides, Mycroft's team is watching and listening. (But weren't they watching before?)

He suspects that John will be less than pleased by the constant illumination and underlying buzz of sound. But John's slept in worse conditions. It's never dark and never quiet in hospitals. Just when you drift off, some gratingly chipper nurse comes to see if you're asleep. Sherlock preferred the ones who were sullen and silent. He walked out after two days which would have been against everyone's advice if he'd bothered to ask them.

John may want to break every light bulb in the flat, but he doesn't care; he just wants John to come back.


	6. So, What Happened Was

It was the shock that led to it. It might never have happened but for that. Or so John wanted to believe. How else could he have ended up stroking his flatmate's head? His flatmate's newly shorn head.

Gone were the lush curls that fell in such attractive disarray about Sherlock's face. Gone was the hair that John had (secretly) always wanted to touch. In its place was a severe buzz cut that left Sherlock's neck and high forehead obscenely bare. Ears too. How had he never really noticed how long Sherlock's face was? Attached earlobes, he thought, rather randomly. And shaggy eyebrows.

Sherlock tried to be all bluster about it. "Had to be done. That compound just wouldn't budge, not even with turpentine. It's just hair." But it was clear to John that Sherlock was unhappy with the enforced crop.

John reached out, just meaning to pat Sherlock on the shoulder to say that it was fine, that no one would laugh (not within John's hearing), that Sherlock looked fine (good, actually—could never really look _bad_).

What actually _occurred_, was that John _touched_ Sherlock's head and instead of offering supportive platitudes like a good mate, he said, "Oooo, it's so soft!" And then Sherlock put _his_ fingers in John's hair…

And after that, there really was no turning back.


	7. Anthea 20

"Excuse me, sir," said the chauffeur.

Mycroft sighed.

"Yes?"

(version one)

"She's doing that thing again."

"Again? That's the third time this week!"

"I know sir."

"What happened?"

"After we dropped off that gentleman at your brother's, she was typing as always, when she froze. I tried turning her off and on again. Her eyes lit up, but she didn't reboot."

"Bother. IT said that they had fixed her. OS X Lion, my foot. Apple products look good, but their processing power is rubbish. When was she last backed up?"

"Two hours ago."

"We'll lose some information, but it can't be helped. Run the restore program in safe mode. Let me know if it works. I need her operational later tonight."

(version two)

"I had to subdue Anthea 412. After we left 221b she started saying that she was real over and over."

"Yes, that tends to happen if we keep them active for too long. Have Q break another one out of stasis. It's a pity. They never have all of the memories despite the neural link."

(version three)

"That gentleman friend of your brother's made a pass at the Anthea hologram."

"Good Lord! He didn't try to touch her did he?"

"No, sir, she deflected him."

"At least it wasn't the real Agent Anthea. She'd have broken his arm."


	8. In Sleep You Are As In Death

There are moments when he thinks that John is dead. That's he's died on the couch, or in their bed. In sleep, John's either restless, or he's still. His breath will become so shallow that the rise and fall of his chest will be all but invisible under his jumpers and cardis. Sherlock has to resist the temptation to hold a mirror above John's mouth.

It's not rational. John's in excellent health. There's no reason to think that he will suddenly die with no warning, like an infant in a cradle.

The one time Sherlock gave in to his fear and pressed his ear to John's chest, John woke and was not pleased. Sherlock tried to explain but he's not good at explaining what he feels inside, only what he thinks about things outside so it came out wrong, and John was even more annoyed.

They both know that it's more likely that John will die in battle alongside Sherlock than unexpectedly at forty, or quietly in his sleep at ninety, but since Sherlock dreams that scenario too, it's hardly a comfort.

After John wakes for the fifth time with Sherlock staring at him he says, "Alright, out with it. What are you thinking?"

"That I don't know why you put up with me."

John smiles, "I worry about you too."


	9. A Life in Pictures

For a long time he didn't buy the book, even though he was in it-page 56. He remembers the day so clearly that he's afraid that seeing the picture will displace the image in his mind.

They were all laughing, he, Mark, Erika, Tomas. And Jennifer. Jennifer loudest of all. The camera was almost never off her neck, hardly out of her hands. Even naked in his bunk the camera was on the chair within arm's reach. He'd joke that it was watching them, or that she was recording it to blackmail him.

He'd thought it ridiculous that she was taking their pictures, his especially. Just an off-duty doctor. "Save it for the heroes. Save it for the children. Hell, save it for the flowers on the hills," he'd said.

"You guys are heroes," she'd said. "You save lives. I want to get all the images of war. The ones that are tragic, yes, but the ones that are uplifting too.

Tomas had said that she should get some of them in action, working on the wounded. She'd said she get those too.

Four days later the truck she was in hit an IED.

She'd been uploading pictures to Reuters as she went, so most of her work was saved. Those amazing pictures of children playing a form of kickball with the soldiers contrasted with the bombed out buildings behind them. The sun over the mountains with the tents in the foreground. And the soldiers. Soldiers, whole and smiling. And soldiers in beds, on crutches, shipping back, some smiling for her camera, others not.

But he was happy that they'd had enough to compile the book that she'd always wanted. It was a piece of her that would live on.

*dedicated to Tim Hetherington and to Christie Sullivan, a Reuters photographer and childhood friend of my husband's who was killed in the Bosnian War and to all the others killed in war.


	10. A Very, Merry Unbirthday to Me

"Joohhhnnn," Sherlock drawled, in his I'm-so-luscious-you-have-to-do-as-I-say voice.

Sometimes what he wanted was something that John actually wanted as well, kisses, cuddlings…sex.

But it could just as easily be a request for something mundane that John didn't want to do, like going back out in the pouring rain for nicotine patches, lube or condoms when Sherlock had been out all day and had ample opportunity to nip into a chemists.

It could also be a request for something ludicrous that John absolutely didn't want to do at all, ever,

like going back out in the rain to buy six mice at the local pet store.

John, sighed. He was already making tea. He was already making dinner. There was a fresh supply of nicotine patches, lube and condoms in the bedroom. That rather left option one or three.

"Yes?" He turned to look into the sitting room to see that Sherlock was kneeling in his chair, John's comfy chair, head resting on the back, tilted to one side.

Nope, could still be option one or three.

"Johhhnn? Where are you going to take me for my birthday?"

''Your birthday!" John spluttered. He waved at the open windows where the heat of a London July was making itself known.

"Your birthday was in January. We went out. We had champagne. I bought you champagne! I wore that…thing you liked."

"Pfft," said Sherlock. "That was my deflection birthday."

"Your deflection birthday?"

"Yes. It lets everyone think that they're celebrating my birthday, but my birthday is really July 15th."

"You let ME celebrate your birthday in January!"

"Problem?"

"I feel a bit used! More than usual. This is just an excuse to get more presents."

"No, not at all. Only you know my real birthday, well, Mycroft and Mummy and Daddy, obviously."

John turned back to the stove. "No, absolutely not. I am not indulging some bizarre whim of yours just to get more love and attention out of me, like you don't already have it all."

"Joohhhnnnn… I was thinking the south of France might be nice. I'll wear that thing you like…or nothing at all."

Well, somewhere between one and three then. "Fine, order the tickets," John sighed, beaten, but not really sorry.


	11. Accomplishments

It occurs to Greg one day that he could take Mycroft down in a fight. Not that he wants to! It's just that Mycroft and Sherlock seem to be so skilled in so many things. And Greg sometimes feels inadequate.

He knows that Mycroft has experience in hand to hand combat (there have been some times in the bedroom…) but how much is part of the official secrets act, or so Mycroft says.

But just once, just once, he'd like to do something better than Mycroft does.

Mycroft speaks several languages (European, African and Asian). He fences (foil, epee and sabre). He rides (show jumping and dressage). He cooks (Le Cordon Bleu). He even speed reads! (Well, he would have to, wouldn't he, what with the red box that comes home with him each night).

So he invites Mycroft wrestling, and he's feeling really good because he gets Mycroft pinned and then he realizes that Mycroft isn't even breaking a sweat.

He rolls back onto his heels. "You're letting me win," and with that he stands and walks into the locker room.

Mycroft comes in, looking ludicrously suave even in his gear. "What's this about, Greg?"

"I just don't know why…"

"Why what."

"Why you're with me. I'm not posh; I'm not rich; I'm not young. I feel stupid around you much of the time, clumsy and badly dressed…"

Mycroft smiles, but he doesn't approach. This isn't the moment for an embrace. It will just seem patronizing.

"Do you know what I see when I look at you, Greg."

"No."

"I see a man who has lived. Who lives out loud. All the time. I love my corridors of power, but I live my life behind computer screens and out of official dispatch bags but you're out there. Fighting the good fight."

"So's your brother."

"But he does it to prove something, to himself. You do it because you _have_ to. You're not doing it for glory, but because it's the right thing to do. You have no idea how rare that is. You're one of the good ones, Greg and maybe you never win the silly awards, but you win my heart _and_ my respect."

Greg stared at his feet. "I love you, My."

"I know. Now take me home and I'll give you a different sort of prize."


	12. No Air

Pressure on every centimeter of skin. Like the water is being compressed around them, solidifying.

_How soon can we come up for air? Are the snipers still there? Is the building falling? Is the sky burning or is that just the way that it feels?_

The explosion seems to be frozen in water too, suspended in time, trapped in amber, as if they'll find them there in a few centuries time, reaching towards one another, like Pompeii.

Strange, the movies had it right. It _is_ slow motion, or maybe that's the water again, because John's a powerful swimmer, but he doesn't seem to be getting any closer to Sherlock at all.

The cardigan is waterlogged and heavy. His shoes prevent him from kicking out properly.

_What a foolish thing to go swimming in. Must be worse for Sherlock—that narrow suit doesn't give much range of motion in the arms. I have to go to him. Isn't that just the way._

Kisses are rubbish under water. The movies lie about that. You can't breathe, and you can't hold yourself in position without flailing and hitting the other and dragging them down and the water gets in your mouth and the chlorine burns your eyes.

_We can stay under and drown when we gasp for breath as we're both about twelve seconds from doing, or we can risk surfacing. _

_And I love you so much, you fool, and are you alright?_

John tries to convey all of this with a few waggles of his fingers and movements of his eyebrows. There is confusion as they both try to pull the other up and only end up pushing each other down.

They break the surface, and the sky isn't burning, but the building is not doing well at all.

Kisses with your head above water are better, but not much at this moment because there's smoke everywhere and it's adding to the burning in the eyes, and everything tastes of chlorine and not of one another.

_I love you too, and I never, ever wanted to put you at risk. Are you okay to swim for the side?_

Sherlock doesn't have enough air to say this, but he manages to convey this a bit better than John did with his agile face and nimble fingers.


End file.
